US Government to Accelerate AI Talent Hiring for “High-Priority Projects” in 2024

The US Government is already in the process of recruiting top AI talent across multiple federal agencies and has plans to scale hiring AI talent in 2024. The hiring is expected to help the federal government in formulating regulations, integrating AI into government operations, and expediting research and development endeavors.

The Office of Personnel Management has authorized federal agencies with flexible hiring capabilities for securing AI talent, encompassing direct hire authorities and excepted service authorities.

“Government-wide tech talent programs, including the Presidential Innovation Fellows, U.S. Digital Corps, and U.S. Digital Service, have scaled up hiring for AI talent in 2024 across high-priority AI projects,” the White House said.

This comes at a time when federal agencies are grappling with the task of broadening the federal talent pool with individuals proficient in AI research, development, procurement, and deployment.

Last year, the government set up the AI and Tech Talent Task Force to expedite AI hiring across different federal agencies.

Recently, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has partnered with major AI companies like NVIDIA, OpenAI and Google to launch the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot program.

Other big names joining the NAIRR pilot include Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Intel, Anthropic, Hugging Face, IBM Meta and Palantir, among others.

Also, federal agencies such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are part of the pilot.

The pilot, which is a two-year program, aims to establish a national resource providing researchers and educators access to AI resources along with advanced computing, datasets, models, and software. The objective is to sustain the U.S. leadership in AI research and innovation.